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Following on from feedback received before and during June's IBSA Goalball World Championships in Malmo, Sweden, IBSA Goalball will alter the way the sport's world rankings are calculated with immediate effect.

Change 1 –Importance

The Importance of a match will now be scored in the following manner.
a) 1 point for alliInternational matches including Paralympic and regional Qualification Tournaments (competition)
b) 1.5 points for all iInternational matches including Paralympic and regional Qualification Tournaments (competition finals)
c) 2 points for all regulation matches played at IBSA Goalball World Championships and Paralympic Games (competition)
d) 2.5 points for all finals matches played at IBSA World Championships and Paralympic Games (finals)

Change 2 – Global Strength

Regional Strength will now be changed to Global Strength.

A team’s Global Strength will be calculated by their performance over the previous two Paralympic Games and IBSA Goalball World Championships. After each tournament, all the competing teams will be placed in rank order for each division based on tournament finish.
The ranking of teams finishing outside the knock out games (9th to 16th) will be determined by their total points and goal difference (as per Rule 50 of the IBSA Goalball Rules and Regulations) from the round robin. The ranking of teams finishing before the semi-finals (5th to 8th) will also be determined by their total points and goal difference from their round robin matches.
Each team will be allocated a score depending on their order of finish and how many teams are competing in the competition. The winner will be given a score of 1.0000 and score will decrease equally down the ranking order.
Eg. In a sixteen team competition, the first team will be given a score of 1.0000, the second team will receive 0.9375, third will receive 0.8750, fourth will receive 0.8125 and so on until the last place team receives 0.0625.
Any country that is not competing in either the Paralympic Games or the IBSA Goalball World Championships for that year will be given a score of 0.0500. This score will always be less than the team that finishes last in these tournaments.
The average of these four scores for each team will then calculated to give the team its Global Strength. This score will then be used as a multiplier for that team in all its matches until the next Paralympic Games or IBSA Goalball World Championships when a new score will be calculated depending on the ranking of teams in that new tournament.

Based on the scores calculated from the last two Paralympic Games (London 2012 and Rio 2016) and IBSA Goalball World Championships (Espoo 2014 and Malmo 2018) IBSA Goalball can confirm that each country’s regional strength for each division in the attached document.

The rational for the changes is because the original purpose for the rankings was to have countries competing in more international tournaments and matches. The current system was rewarding teams for not doing so.

Also, smaller countries entering the ranking list for the first time, particularly those from the Americas and Asia were being given a lift when the regional score is given to them. Under the new system each country will be rewarded individually in two ways, first by simply qualifying for Paralympic Games and World Championships and secondly by how well they perform in those tournaments.

Despite the changes being immediate, the ranking of teams will gradually be affected over time so the changes will not be seen immediately.

A full copy of the new IBSA Goalball World Rankings guide including qualification criteria for ranking tournaments can be found in the documents section of this website.